On Borrowed Time: Australia's Environmental Crisis and What We Must Do About It

Author: David Lindenmayer

Penguin publishers-RRP $34.95

Global warming, biodiversity loss, salinity . . . There is no doubt Australia's environmental problems appear huge and overwhelming. Not only is our unique natural heritage under threat, but the consequences for agriculture, tourism and the economy may be catastrophic. Can anything be done to halt the destruction?

The good news is much can be done. In this powerful and passionate book, David Lindenmayer argues that Australia does have the knowledge and resources to tackle our environmental problems. In addition, he outlines creative and impressive solutions we can all be a part of. One of Australia's leading ecologists, Professor Lindenmayer delivers a timely message about the scale and urgency of the crisis we face.

And then there was 11...

Eleven councils, representing just under 1.4 million people have passed resolutions to end Melbourne’s water catchment logging.

Catchment logging has cost Melburnians billions of litres of water and as global warming continues to wage reduced rainfall across the southern part of Australia, further risk to catchment inflows is a risk no-one wants to test. TCHA commends the extraordinary leadership of the Shire of Yarra Ranges in leading this motion.

In the shire of Yarra Ranges their are 91 people employed to log catchments with a total employment including haulage of 220 people. Their are 35,000 people employed across the Shire. Their are 4 million people across Melbourne who drink from these water catchments.

And once there was a great leader that valued the trees, a man of courage, conviction and and above all a man of the land. He stood at Ellery Creek in East Gippsland and hollered a great war cry ‘they shall not sell these giants for pittance to chip ships that plantations could supply’. Where is that great leader? Has he vanished like the trees? Or is he getting ready to transition chip industries?

These pictures depict our Premiere disappointed by the logging of high conservation value forests and experiencing the serenity of the great giants of East Gippslands forests. It’s a crying shame that this man, who once believed in the land and its value, sells these forests for less than $8.50 a tonne.

Logging coupes burn across the state along with ‘controlled burning’ across wet forests throughout the Central Highlands. Coupes burnt last week have reignited forcing the state government to deploy fire teams to extinguish and watch the ignitions, another logging cost put on tax payers. As clearly as the lack of accountability for the logging burns is the accountability for the greenhouse gases filling the biosphere. This industry must be made to pay like everyone else. Every business on the planet will be accountable for their greenhouse footprint...no exceptions.